Oh, this is brilliant. The prologue of KHII made me cry, too, and not enough people touch on why it's so sad. I want to hug Hayner, and Sora, too, because he's so close, but not quite able to understand. And the way Roxas is so present throughout is just perfect. Lovely, lovely work.

Great story, loved how you mentioned how they all in some way missed Roxas!

Rubie chapter 1 . 11/21/2008

TT_TT

I..

There are almost no words for this. I'm left speechless in the absolute best way possible. I can hardly recall how many times during the play of KHII that I would just set the controls down and just stare at the screen. I would always end up thinking about how sad it was for Hayner, Pence, and Olette. How unfair it was for them to lose their friend.

Also, this story paired with "Name" by the Goo Goo Dolls was almost too much.

aw poor Hayner... ahahah what the crap ya know i think that was the most depressing part of KH II...the face that the Twilight gang totally forgot Roxas but like...didnt...this is making me sad ahahah AWW! with the pictures i think that's the saddest thing ive ever heard hahahha poor Hayner leaning on someone who isnt there hhahha aw *tears* the little wrist bump! wah...oh man if that had happened in the game i think i would have cried like woah hhaha WAH! *cries* hahah this was really cute and sad and col

Tragically beautiful. It really has that "Twilight Town" feel, especially with Hayner experiencing what was likely one of Roxas' primary emotions through the start of KHII... I get this sense of bright and dusty and just a little bit empty... and really, wonderful job, this one touched me a great deal.

I usually write so much longer reviews, but I just spent about an hour on the last one and I really need to get some sleep. I'll try to be brief and noteworthy, but if I get carried away I do hope you'll understand.

I don't like that the third paragraph of the first section is a sentence fragment. While you're working with the idea that his logic is breaking down when he gets here, the sentence itself runs together and doesn't make all that much sense. It's hard to piece it together without a subject (that's not an implied one, I mean) and I so dearly want to. I think the ideas in the sentence will carry your meaning without you doing the extra fragmentation. A good risk, but unnecessary.

Section 2 rocks. I love the confusion but immediacy of Hayner's statement. I didn't get what Hayner was doing with his hand in Section 3 the first time, but upon reading it and, you know, actually thinking about it, I totally get it now. Not your fault, mine.

Section 4 is very beautifully done. Fix nothing except for perhaps "started out arguing", just for flow reasons. A lot of your dialogue tags go on for a lot longer than I think is necessary sometimes, so watch out for that.

Section 5 is also delightful, almost poetic in nature.

In Section 6, Olette is under-developed. I get a great Pence in 3, but in 6 Olette gets a shot and she's not giving that one reaction I need to make her real for me. (That reaction should take place after paragraph 3 in this section.) In this section, I also uncover the ages of your characters, which was tough to figure out until now. The tone didn't fit until I had that information.

In section 7, "was it's own sort of wisdom" needs to lose the apostrophe. Change nothing else. It's...change nothing. :) Unless you feel as if you must, of course.

It's a beautifully done little series of scenes that nevertheless connect so admirably. This is the kind of narration I want to do, but never make myself slow down enough to pull off. You make it effortless.

Watch your tags, watch your word choice (the shorter and simpler word might yield a stronger result sometimes), and keep trying for some subtle stuff. You have subtlety in here and I love that in a piece, so keep working with it. :) I caught some wonderful imagery that tipped me off to things to come.